Bath Abbey

Bath Abbey stood roofless and incomplete until after the Reformation. By 1575 it had been sufficiently restored for services to be held again in the choir, but it was not until 1864-1871 that the vaulting of the nave had been completed by Sir Gilbert Scott, who faithfully copied the medieval scheme. In the intervening years, the spirit of gothic art and structure had been swamped by a return to the Romanesque principles from which it had developed. The new architecture was that of the Renaissance, which, maturing rapidly in Italy, was to come to England, gently at first, but later like the Flood.